faintly

What it means

1. In a faint manner; very quietly or lightly.

   ‘When—when are you going?’ said Jane faintly.

   1930, Margaret Ayer Barnes, Years of Grace, Part II, Chapter IV, page 198

   2 more examples

   So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   Faintlier, faintlier came the footfalls to his ear, until of all the faint sounds that came, by the abandoned air, to his ear, not one was a footfall, as far as he could judge.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

In a sentence

So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

Where it comes from

1. Middle Englishfeintli
2. Englishfaintly

From Middle English feintli, feintliche, equivalent to faint + -ly.